JMS

[also posted at Public Radio Quest]

We all had our public and private guesses about how many entries we’d get for the Talent Quest, but none of us anticipated the flurry of activity over the weekend and through Monday. When I checked in Sunday morning we had about 800 entries, and by Monday at midnight we had 1368.

In tech terms, we served up nearly 112,000 page views on Monday and handled over 500 2 minute (2MB) contest submissions while over 10 thousand voters continued to listen, vote and comment on contest entries. We also served up 30GB of data running at a constant 5MB/second. That’s 2 full contest entries being downloaded every second all day long, a pace which has hardly let up since. Our hosting provider Contegix performed admirably under the circumstances.

As we’ve explained to folks who contacted us about this, a number of people had trouble uploading audio the website due to the extraordinary volume of traffic we were experiencing. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to extend the deadline and accommodate additional entries.

Basically we determined it was impossible to distinguish accurately, fairly or in a timely fashion between those who may have had problems due to the site traffic and those who experienced other problems beyond our control that last day or previously. Allowing re-submissions for some and not others would create new issues and still not make everyone happy (which sucks because making everyone happy is what we would really like to do).

This is disappointing for everyone, of course we want as many people as possible to participate. But if you missed your chance with the Talent Quest this time around, there are some other sites that can help you get your foot into the proverbial public radio door:

http://www.prx.org — where you can upload and distribute your work to stations (feel free to upload your Talent Quest entry here, by the way)
http://www.transom.org — for advice on tools of the trade and the craft itself
http://www.airmedia.org — a community of independent public radio producers

We really hope everyone will parlay their passion for public radio into new opportunities, and stay involved in the growing Talent Quest community. We’re certainly looking for ways to bring new exposure and ideas into the mix, above and beyond the current contest.

Now it’s time to focus in on the remarkable crop of entries on the site. We’ve all got our work cut out for us - over 45 hours of audio in total - so please chip in with your votes and comments over the next two week as the judging gets underway.

Thanks!

Jake
Executive Director, PRX